West Midlands-based Warwick Music Group has been assessed as the Midlands’ most creative entrepreneurial business in the inaugural Economic Disrupter Awards.

More than 100 companies were nominated for the awards run by The Spectator and Julius Baer.

Tamworth-based Warwick Music Group, creators of a family of high-quality plastic brass instruments including pBone, pTrumpet and pBuzz that are sold worldwide, was chosen for its creativity and scaling potential.

Warwick Music Group is credited with profoundly changing the declining brass instrument market by developing instruments that appeal to children in particular but which are also attractive to existing brass players. Their robust, lightweight instruments, manufactured from recyclable ABS plastic, now make up a staggering 80% of all brass instrument sales in the UK in a sector that has been largely free of innovation for the past two centuries.

The Economic Disrupter Awards were presented by broadcaster Andrew Neil, Chairman of The Spectator, at a dinner in London. The judging panel included Martin Vander Weyer, business editor of The Spectator; Rory Sutherland, executive creative director at Ogilvy; Gordon Black, former chairman of Peter Black Holdings; John Caudwell, founder of Phones4U and senior representatives from Julius Baer.

Martin Vander Weyer, business editor of The Spectator, said of Warwick Music Group: “Low-cost musical instruments? You might think ‘that’s sweet, that’s fun’ but actually, they’re now selling to big cities across America, deprived cities where children are experiencing music for the first time.”

Steven Greenall, CEO of Warwick Music Group said the award was recognition for entrepreneurial disrupters across the UK.

“Britain has a tradition of innovation and being judged alongside so many inspiring and forward-thinking enterprises is quite daunting.

“We are proud that a Midlands business has achieved such recognition. What is particularly important is that our instruments are also inspiring the next generation of creators and innovators and demonstrating that inventiveness can apply to just about every area of life.

“It’s also a tribute to our team, their determination and skills that enable us to compete on the world-stage,” he said.